Accessiblity

We are committed to making our website as accessible as possible for all our website visitors, including those with disabilities.

We try to adhere to the most stringent standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium, which is an international group responsible for setting standards for web technologies. The Consortium has set up a specialist task group, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), to define standards on web accessibility for disabled users.

The WAI produces varying levels of standards and grades them in order of importance. Organisations can use these grades to decide what level of accessibility to aim for. The Academy at Shotton Hall aims to stick to all of the WAI’s standards.

The standards are designed to ensure that all users can access the content on our website, including:

Blind users

Partially sighted and colour-blind users

Deaf users

Hearing-impaired users

Users with limited mobility

Users with cognitive disabilities or learning difficulties

Users with photo-sensitive epilepsy.

Due to the unique nature of this websites navigation some aspects may not meet the higher WAI requirements. Therefore, a fully accessible version of this site can be viewed when Javascript is turned off through your browser settings. How to do this varies from browser to browser, so we have provided some guidelines below for the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

In Internet Explorer, select the Cog icon in the top right hand side of the browser window | Select Internet options | Select the Security tab | Click the Custom Level button | Scroll to the scripting section and select the "Disable" radio button. Click Apply and OK. Restart your browser. To Restore JavaScript repeat this process and select the "Enable" radio button.

In Chrome select the Spanner icon (located at the top right of the browser window) | Select Settings | Click on the Show Advanced Settings Link at the bottom of the page | Select Content Settings button under the Privacy heading | Select the Disable JavaScript radio button | Click on OK and restart your Browser. To Restore JavaScript Repeat this Process and select the Enable radio Button.

In Safari select the Cog icon in the top right hand of the browser window | Select Preferences | Select the Security tab. Uncheck the Enable JavaScript Box | Close the Window | Restart your browser. To restore JavaScript repeat the process and check the JavaScript checkbox.

How This Benefits Visitors
To illustrate how compliancy has made this site accessible, we have listed representative disabilities below and explained how this site meets the users' needs.

Visual (Impaired)
Those with visual impairments (e.g. myopia) can scale on all pages on the site to suit their own requirement. All text on pages is scaled, including all menu items.

Physical
For those that have difficulty using a mouse, keyboard access is supported by using standard shortcut techniques. This site can be fully navigated without the use of a mouse.

Cognitive
The layout of this site is uniform on all pages. The main (horizontal) menu is structured identically on all pages (i.e. any page can be accessed from anywhere in the site). Additionally, section or page navigation is always included in the panel to the top of each page.

Neurological
There are no animated images or flashing text on this site which could – in extreme cases – cause difficulty for people who have particular neurological disorders.

Features for the Visually Impaired
This website incorporates several features to support blind and poor-sighted people.

Text Scaling
All text on this website is specified in percentage terms, meaning that its size can be increased inside the browser window for easier viewing. The ability to support text scaling varies from browser to browser, but given below are some guidelines for the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

In Firefox select the View | Zoom menu command. You can also continually increase or decrease the current zoom factor by pressing the Ctrl and +, or Ctrl and - key combinations.

In Chrome select the Page Icon (located at the top right of the browser window) | Zoom menu command. You can also continually increase or decrease the current zoom factor by pressing the Ctrl and +, or Ctrl and - key combinations. Ctrl and 0 will reset the zoom to normal.

In Safari select the Page Icon (located at the top right of the browser window) | Zoom menu command. You can also continually increase or decrease the current zoom factor by pressing the Ctrl and +, or Ctrl and - key combinations. Ctrl and 0 will reset the zoom to normal.

Even the same browser product can behave differently on different platforms. For example, Internet Explorer on the Mac will scale images, whereas the Windows version cannot. Check with your supplier for further details.

Give Us Your Feedback
The Academy at Shotton Hall are committed to providing an accessible service. If you experience problems or have any suggestions for improvement, please Contact us.